Tighten-Up on Your Home Business Accounts Moundsville WV

With the current economic crisis, are your customers stretching out their payments or disappearing without paying off their debt to you? If so, it’s time to review the basics and art of collecting accounts receivable without damaging customer relations. First of all, remember the cardinal rule, “It’s your money and you needn’t be bashful about seeking prompt payment for your goods and services.”

Tighten-Up on Your Home Business Accounts

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When Times Get Tough, Receivables Get Tougher To Collect By Richard J. Maturi

With the current economic crisis, are your customers stretching out their payments or disappearing without paying off their debt to you? If so, it’s time to review the basics and art of collecting accounts receivable without damaging customer relations. First of all, remember the cardinal rule, “It’s your money and you needn’t be bashful about seeking prompt payment for your goods and services.”

Timely Invoices and Billing Statements The cornerstone of your accounts receivable system is providing timely invoices and billing statements. Every day you delay, is another day you don’t get your money. It helps to know your customers’ payment cycle. If they pay once a month on the fifteenth, and you send out your invoices on the 20th, you missed their payment cycle. By timing invoicing by customer, you may receive payment early, improving cash flow dramatically. If your receivables are large enough, a bank lockbox speeds up collections by eliminating the time it takes to process receipts in-house and deliver them to your bank.

Clearly Spelled Out Terms Make sure your terms are clearly spelled out on invoices and billing statements. The invoice establishes the existence of the debt and should contain several key bits of information to prevent any confusion should conflict arise. First of all, date your invoice. This helps your customer determine when payment should be made based on the terms (net 30, 2% discount if paid with 15 days of invoice, etc.), which should also be prominently placed on the invoice. Know the current Dun & Bradstreet industry norms for payment cycles so you do not make your terms too stringent and thus lose customers to competitors with more lenient payment terms. Make sure you provide an accurate and complete description of the goods and services received by the customer. Inventory code numbers are great for your computer but mean nothing to the customer.

Accounts Receivable Schedule Keep a pulse on billing activity and accounts receivable. Prepare an accounts receivable schedule by customer and payment due date. When the payment does not arrive on the expected date, make a friendly call to let your customer know you appreciate their business and inquire what has delayed payment. This usually gets the check in the mail. It lets customers know that you expect payment on time and are not the one who will let things slide. It’s also a good tool to help determine if a particular customer is experiencing financial difficulty. If so, you might try to work out a payment schedule that satisfies both of you. Working with your customer through a rough patch, may make them a faithful customer for many years.

Solving Problems Ask when you can expect payment or if there is anything you can do to help move payment along. If any problems exist, now is the time to get them solved. It may be as simple as faxing a c...

Rules” to business borrowing! An interesting concept. True — the “rules” presented below may be considered as act-on “options”. But the consequences of not being aware of these options, achieving a successful business loan program, can be costly to your business, your fortune and your peace of mind.